EU

"Europe is not yet able to assure a single energy course without the USA, and this is its weak point", – considers the head of Lithuanian Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis. During the interview to DELFI he dwelled on priorities of foreign policy, the EU initiative of “Eastern Partnership”, energy security and the view on the operation of Russia-NATO Council that will officially resume its work in the end of April. READ MORE

Russia has six bullets with which to wound or kill the European Union's Eastern Partnership, and put the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy out of its misery in the process.

It is generally accepted that the project is at the mercy of Moscow, the old colonial master of the six privileged European neighbors: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. READ MORE

The ousting of Mirek Topolánek is raising questions regarding a series of high-profile international meetings in Prague, as the Czech prime minister-in-resignation will still be the EU's official chair when the summits take place in early May.

Analysts said the Czech EU presidency had "de facto ended" after Topolánek's government lost a no-confidence vote in the Czech parliament on 24 March. READ MORE

Belarusian Foreign Minister Syarhei Martynau stated that Belarus finds it important that the Eastern Partnership program offered by the European Union provides for equal partnership.

“Essentially Belarus has a positive attitude to the Eastern Partnership initiative. It is important that the Eastern Partnership is oriented to equal partnership,” stressed the head of the Foreign Ministry in Minskafter his meeting with the visiting prime minister of Germany's federal state of Brandenburg, Matthias Platzek. READ MORE

President Viktor Yushchenko was vexed when European Commission President Jose Barroso suggested that he and Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko should make peace for the sake of Ukraine's stability. "I don't want to get advice on what to do anywhere in Europe, this is humiliating," said Yushchenko, reacting to Barroso's peaceful initiative at the summit of the EU's right-of-center People's Party, which Yushchenko and Tymoshenko attended together in March. Yushchenko's reaction betrayed the degree of disappointment with what is widely seen in Ukraine as betrayal by the European Union of the past-Orange Revolution hopes for faster integration into the EU. READ MORE

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticized on Saturday the European Union's new partnership with six former Soviet states, suggesting the 27-member bloc was seeking to extend its own sphere of influence. READ MORE

With EU leaders putting €600 million in the pot for the Eastern Partnership, the European Commission is mulling over how to assign personnel to run the new project.

"The means are there for this to start up, that's the most important thing," Czech EU presidency foreign minister Karl Schwarzenberg said in Brussels on Friday (20 March), after EU leaders approved the policy at a meeting dominated by multi-billion euro plans on the economy. READ MORE

The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament Jacek Saryusz-Wolski expressed his view on possible participation of Belarus within the EU program of Eastern Partnership. READ MORE